Meet ICR 2023’s online expert: The Welsh Cheese Company

What better retailer to represent the best of Welsh indie cheese retail than the one created to do just that? With the aim of showcasing and celebrating the very best Welsh artisan cheeses, The Welsh Cheese Company has grown from an online-only operation to a warehouse and office space for its wholesale and online arm, and a retail shop proudly selling direct to a loyal public.

As with any specialist business, the team has worked hard to not only gain an unparalleled understanding of its marketplace, but also relationships with the sector across its home country. “We’re really passionate about Welsh cheese and believe that we’ve got some of the best cheeses in the world here in Wales,” begins Tom. “The fact that we’re so specialist means that we know the Welsh cheese scene really well. We’re constantly in touch with cheesemakers from all over Wales and love to be the first people to be championing any great new cheese that’s being made in Wales.” 

A growing mission
Making the jump from bricks and mortar to online is a challenge in itself, but moving to incorporate a physical shop when your retail experience is based around e-commerce is quite the feat – even if the model neatly caters to changing consumer needs. “Covid has meant that we’ve had quite a tumultuous couple of years. When the pandemic started we were in a very fortunate position because we were primarily selling online, so we were able to continue to sell that way and the business grew,” explains Tom. “We’ve had to adapt whilst coming out of the pandemic. On the one hand we’ve been working very hard to retain all of the new online customers that we picked up over the past couple of years, and on the other hand we’ve been very keen to move the business forward and diversify. Hence the physical shop and the wholesale operation. It’s been challenging but we’ve got a small but brilliant team here who have really risen to the challenge.”

The team’s first physical shop opened in 2022, and is already selling over 70 different varieties of Welsh cheese as does the website. Of course, having in-person interactions with customers is a bonus: “it’s fantastic to be able to share our love of Welsh cheese with customers face to face,” says Tom. Exciting plans are afoot – a boon for a small-scale business like The Welsh Cheese Company. “One of the advantages of being a comparably small business is being able to rapidly adapt and evolve, so we’ve got so many ideas of the next few months that we’re really looking forward to putting in place.”

Growth is ongoing. “We had a 30sqm cold store built at the end of 2021 which means that we can hold enough stock to supply Welsh cheese to other businesses all over Wales, and one of our main goals for 2023 is to continue to grow our wholesale customer base and introduce Welsh cheese to restaurants, delis, farm shops and other businesses who don’t yet know how good it is.”

Powering the team
“We’ve got a really strong belief in the quality of the cheeses that we sell. We’re proud to be working closely with Welsh cheesemakers and proud to help bring them to as wide an audience as possible. We’re also very focused on customer service,” Tom says. “We primarily sell online, which can often mean that customers don’t have a chance to develop much of a relationship with a business, but we work hard to provide the best service we can to every customer, whether that’s in the way cheese is presented and delivered, or in every customer interaction.”

Find out more about the team by reading their profile in the latest issue of Inspirational Cheese Retailers.